- Joined
- Aug 10, 2021
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- Location
- Surrey, UK
- Emira Status
- Emira on order
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Featured
- #21
Agree with all here.. I have never PPF'd a car but plan on this being my first. I'll likely ceramic treat the PPF as well - a few Youtube videos really call out the benefit of this (though it seems strange to me initially). Effectively you get super hydrophobic surface with ceramic coated PPF making the car easier to clean on the regular, but you still benefit of the self correcting PPF for swirls, micro abrasions (with a little heat applied).
What about the underside? I certainly don't plan on driving in salty winter weather but where I am, the roads are dusty salt well into spring. If I'm not mistaking the underside is panelled or flat... can anyone confirm? Would the underside warrant any type of undercoating or "bed liner" type coating for real long term protection? Folks with existing Lotus?
The main purpose of PPF and/or Ceramic is to protect the surfaces you can see. There's a very small secondary benefit in terms of preventing actual corrosion, but the paint protects from that unless it is breached and even then it's a composite panel not steel underneath.
The underside is completely flat apart from the aero vents under the front of the engine bay and then the diffuser. I assume the undertray is anodised (like other Lotus cars) and the diffuser will be anodised or powder coated. Chassis components are usually anodized or powder coated. There's not a lot of benefit in doing further protection and instead just do a regular wash of wheel arches, suspension etc during the winter and in the spring.
The things that corrode are often where steel fasteners have been used. We don't know details yet for the Emira but on the Evora there were some of the undertray bolts and the fixings used for the mudflaps. People quickly identified those and aftermarket firms produced stainless steel versions if people wanted to replace them.